Character Development

We are feeling pretty great about the impact and empowerment we were able to foster in June and July, with the hard work of our amazing high school participants. This morning we reflected on just a handful of Belizean kids that we know made great strides personally and academically. One jr high aged student recently re-enrolled in school after dropping out last year because he said attending our summer camp made him realize he wanted to back to school! It doesn't get any better than that!

We were excited to get back to Boise and give credit where it is due. Kelli and I (Emily) had a great meeting this week with Jennifer Sengelmann, author of Meanings in Motion - character building Life Skills Cards.

These simple cards served as the foundation for our summer curriculum and we were able to implement character development into our program like never before. 

Character development is an interesting aspect of the human experience. Different than our natural abilities, personality types and strengths, good character is something that is available to everyone. In an age of color coded personality and DISC testing, it's refreshing to consider that each one of us are able to hone in on character traits that improve ourselves, our communities and the world as a whole - one person at a time. It's not something like being athletic, or musical, or artistic. It's something that doesn't require talent. Good character can be built through effort and self awareness, and that's what we are in business to do. 

Can you join us in 2017? Become a GSP Voyager! 

Wrapping Up a Literal Whirlwind

Our August GLA volunteers got more than they signed up for with Hurricane Earl roaring through Belize in the wee hours of the night on August 4, 2016. Our service at St. Joseph's School had been going great that week, and we got news of "tropical storm Earl" on August 2. Knowing the storm would impact the village, we cancelled our programming for the 4th and prepared for the storm. We relocated our group to San Ignacio to ride out the storm, allowing the Tropical Education Center, (TEC) where we were staying, to focus on the animals at the Belize Zoo while we safely sheltered at The Log Cab-Inn. The students were all in good spirits, and were completely flexible with fantastic attitudes about all the unknown.

The storm came through in the middle of the night so most students slept through it. The impact within our building was minimal. If you were awake, you could hear the wind but nothing could be seen since it was so dark outside.

In the morning we ventured out and were able to assess the damage around us. We could see trees uprooted and as we were able to travel back to the TEC, we could see the rivers were flooded, some roads blocked by debris and a number of roofs had ripped off of homes in the rural villages. Power was out and the country as a whole was catching its breath and not quite up and running. Our thoughts immediately went to our friends in the villages where we serve. We stopped by St. Joseph's school to find the roof ripped from one of our classroom buildings. Other buildings had additional roof damage and a classroom packed with extra desks had a gallon of paint that had opened and the wind splattered blue paint all over the entire classroom. There was a power line that had fallen but none of the power had been restored throughout the area.

We were lucky that the direction of the wind fell in our favor.

On Friday we returned to the school to resume our service day camp. Unsurprisingly, the attendance was low, so half of our student leaders taught the Belizean kids hoping to restore a sense of stability and normalcy to the day, while the other half worked on cleaning up and helping with minor repairs. A couple of our classrooms were still occupied as hurricane shelter rooms, so we consolidated into fewer classrooms which worked out fine considering our lower numbers at day camp.

It took a while to get Belize back up and running. Many programmatic changes needed to occur as the country slowly recovered from the storm. Belize is so rich in culture and interesting places to visit that we still were able to wrap up the final week of GLA service and excursions with all sorts of adventures. We stopped in for a personal encounter with the wildlife at the Iguana Conservation Project, enjoyed nature hikes and outdoor scavenger hunts. We visited citrus fields and the Mayan ruin site of Cahal Pech, and wrapped up the last weekend in Belize on the gorgeous island of Caye Caulker. There we enjoyed a full day snorkeling and were relieved to find the island in good shape after the storm.

Loving the Iguana Project!

Did you know that oranges are green?

The GLA session is wrapping up today. It's been a whirlwind of a summer in every way - both literally and figuratively. Stay tuned for more updates as we move into the fall season and get back to the flow of our school year programs. There is a lot on the horizon!

Cate and her reef buddy 

Here's to New Partnerships

In 2012 Global Service Partnerships was born. Since then we have established partnerships throughout Belize for enhancing education and cultural experiences for our participants internationally. This is our favorite part of the work we do! Today marks an important new partnership with St. Joseph's R.C. School in Cotton Tree Village. Our first day of summer camp was a total success!

This summer has been full of new partnerships - GLA and now Cotton Tree. These relationships sound so formal in a blog, but it's the people within the organizations that make everything so meaningful. Our volunteers, our local partners, and of course the children that attend the schools where we serve.

"Partnerships" is not just a word in our business name, these are the faces of our partners.

Ms Coleman, Principal of St. Joseph's RC School in Cotton Tree Village

Taylor, our underage cutie at camp

GLA volunteers Isa & Nicos leading their team on Day 1

Shy Smiles on the First Day of Cotton Tree Camp

RECESS!

August leadership team - Korissa, Kelli, Emily & Lauren at Cotton Tree

 

Donations for Mahogany Heights Village

In central Belize there are a number of worthy villages with locals working to make their communities stronger. That said, I've yet to meet a force as powerful and hardworking as Raquel, the community health worker and village leader in Mahogany Heights. Mahogany Heights Village has a long and complex story which would require much more than a blog post to summarize. The short of it is that the village is in what Raquel calls "an era of violence" right now. Unemployment + lack of education = lack of hope. Raquel and others in the village are working hard to redirect those that are struggling and she is doing her best to provide youth leadership programs and camps to keep kids and teens active.

Prepping our donations to drop off in Mahogany Heights Village

Raquel and the Mahogany Heights Health Clinic

Today we dropped of a load of donations for Raquel to distribute throughout the village - soap, hygiene products, games and really cool shoes.

The Shoe That Grows donated a bag full of shoes that we were lucky enough to give out today. Raquel's son was all smiles with the idea that he too could get a pair of these shoes that his mom will be giving out at her children's camp this week.

The Shoe That Grows!

Our GLA Belize August session participants arrive today, so the first couple of girls, along with our GSP staff were able to join us for the donation run and there were smiles all around for the donation stop. What a great way to start our August program! 

ZOOM! That flew by!

It's 9:00pm. The first GLA Belize group is packing up and we are headed to the airport to check them in tomorrow morning at 8:00am. 26 students, 21 days and countless memories.

Tonight we had our final round of an activity we call "Highs, Lows & Heroes". Each night we reflect on the day, but tonight it was a look back at the past three weeks as a whole. We heard about lows from the trip such as "the bug bites", "sunburns" and most often "leaving the kids at St. Matthew's". Our heroes were each other. This group has unified and is seamless. They support each other, celebrate each other, and dance endlessly. Their hearts have been ALL IN!

We enjoyed an afternoon at the Belize Zoo

Afternoon cooking class

Jahad and his little amigos. He got the "Most Fun at Recess" award.

We didn't stop with service in the classroom! Inside AND out!

Keeping with GSP tradition, we ended our service trip with a weekend to relax and explore on Caye Caulker. Everything was so, so good.

Make Summer Matter!

Our summer camp at St. Matthew's started today! "Be Flexible" was our mantra going into the day. We weren't sure how many kids would be there. Also, since it's been a month since school was out for the year, we knew that many families would likely need a reminder. We began the day playing soccer and jumping rope as we waited for the kids to trickle in. By 9:45 we had over 70 kids ready to roll. We were able to fill five classrooms with kids ranging in age from 5 to 13. We have 5-8 GLA volunteers teaching the classes. Our theme for the session is "Make Summer Matter" and we are aiming to promote youth leadership and community activism, while strengthening reading and writing skills. By next week they will have completed a book focusing on Life Skills and taking action. We can't wait to see what they come up with!

Ismael and his new students

Recess!

All smiles from this little guy.

Day 1 = SUCCESS!

Setting Up for Service at School

This morning our students were busy lesson planning and getting ready to teach their classes beginning tomorrow morning at 9:00 am.

After lunch we bused everyone over to the school where we will be working - St. Matthew's Government School. We broke up into two groups and while one group set up their classrooms, the other met with the local Peace Corp volunteer from St Matthew's Village. He gave them additional information about the area and also showed them a bit of the village and some of the houses. Then we rotated the groups, so everyone had a chance to set up and also meet with Chase for the village tour.

St. Matthew's Village

Village Water Well

The school was in a bit of disarray because a few of the classrooms had been painted by a previous volunteer group, so all the chairs were in weird piles throughout the school. After an afternoon of rearranging, we are all set up for camp in the classrooms tomorrow. We will be teaching in 5 classrooms and will have to wait until tomorrow to see how many children from the local villages will come. We are hoping for a full house. We'll report back tomorrow so stay tuned.

The "before" picture. The classrooms look great now.

Our photo intern, Brooklyn took a lot of great shots today. Since we were prepping the school we took advantage of the camera not being a distraction. During lesson time we will have to be more discrete with the camera. We will post the photos we've taken thus far to our Facebook page. If you haven't followed our page, now's the time. We have all kinds of interesting things coming up!

The play field at St. Matthew's School

We finally got a group picture with all 26 GLA students!